As High as the Heavens (4 page)

"Aye, so I've noticed," his son muttered dryly. "And I
wish for that selfsame coddling myself, when the time
is right. In the meanwhile, I've always treated the lassies with honesty and honor, and never made promises I'd
no intention of keeping. Can I help it the good Lord
hasn't yet chosen to send me the woman I must take
to wife?"

"Nay, I suppose not. But yer mither and I are beginning to wonder where in this wide world are ye expecting the Lord to find ye a wife, if not from here in the
Highlands? Unless, of course, ye're planning a wee trip
sometime soon?"

Duncan laughed. "Not that I know of or wish to make,
of that ye can be certain."

He turned his gaze back to the road ahead. It was a
cold, dreary day. Though the recent snowfall had melted,
the dampness and mud only made the weather seem even
more miserable. The journey to their laird's tower house
was but a half day's ride, yet the going had still been
arduous in the treacherously slippery terrain. Duncan
only hoped the unexpected summons was for something
of import, to drag them out on such a wretched day.

"Have ye any idea why Angus Mackenzie wished to
see us?" he asked, deciding it was past time to change
the subject from his flirtations with the local lasses. "I've
heard no rumors of a war brewing, or a renewed feud
wi' any of the other clans, and it isn't time to pay our
taxes. I must confess to a wee bit of curiosity over what
our laird wants wi' us."

"As do I, lad. As do I. Whatever it is, we can't allow
ourselves to be dragged into some extended commitment or an expedition that would call us too far afield.
Yer mither can't care for our cattle by herself, what wi'
her recurrent bouts of dropsy this winter. Though she'll most likely recover by spring, as she did last year, we
can't always impose on our neighbor's generosity to stay
with her."

"Aye, it's hard enough for most of us to get by each
winter," Duncan agreed, "without having to leave home
and hearth to stay wi' neighbors, or go off on some quest
for one's laird." He paused, then laughed again. "Well,
naught is served, I suppose, in fretting over what we
can't hope to know until we get there. Besides, Angus is
a fair man. We'll just point out that one of us must tend
the cattle and the other, for the time being, must stay
near to Mither. He'll understand."

"Mayhap it isn't a task he expects of us at any rate."
Malcolm eyed Duncan slyly. "Angus has one marriageable daughter left-Janet's her name, isn't it?-and I've
seen how she looks at ye at the ceilidhs. Mayhap Angus
but wishes to discuss marriage terms wi' us."

"Janet Mackenzie?" Recalling the last clan gathering
for song, dance, and storytelling, Duncan rolled his eyes.
"The lass is as plump as a partridge, giggles incessantly,
and can barely see to find her seat at table. Besides, she's
but fifteen and barely out of childhood. Make no mistake.
When I wed, I'll wed a woman, not a girl."

"That would be my choice as well, lad. I but broached
the possibility to give ye fair warning."

"And I've been duly warned," Duncan muttered, then
flipped the end of his plaid up to cover his head as a sleeting rain poured suddenly from leaden, lowering skies.

The temporary diversion from the dull winter routine
of leading the cattle out each day to scrounge whatever
dried grass they could find, then herding them back to the shelter of the sheds each night, had initially seemed
most welcome. Now, though, with his father's teasing
mention of Janet Mackenzie's love-struck interest-an
interest Duncan hadn't failed to notice after her several
awkward, childish attempts at trying to catch him alone
and finagle a kiss-he wasn't so sure he even wanted to
set foot in their laird's tower. He didn't wish to hurt the
girl's feelings, feelings he had managed to spare the past
few times only by the most clever and quick-witted of
responses, but he was fast running out of excuses.

The rain became a downpour, quickly drenching them
and their mounts in a numbing cold. Duncan sighed and
hunched yet farther down on his horse, noting that his
breath escaped now in a cloud of vapor.

Verra fine, he thought glumly. At this rate, we'll be frozen
clear through to the bone before we even reach Angus's
tower house. And, if he didn't mistake the situation, Janet
would be first in line to strip him of his wet clothes and
towel him dry.

Perhaps the easiest solution to the problem of seductive young lasses, the dark Highlander mused with rising
resignation, was indeed to do as his father suggested.
Find himself a bonny wife and settle down, once and
for all.

"Och, I'm so verra glad ye're here, Cousin Heather,"
Janet Mackenzie enthused that same morning, high atop
her father's tower house. "It's been the most dreary of
winters, and there are so few women around of our social standing to talk with. But now ye'll be here for the next three months. Och, I can't tell ye how happy that
makes me!"

Heather, trying her best to avoid the frigid rain sluicing down off the roof of the small, sheltered stairway,
suppressed a grimace at the girl's well-meant but endless
chatter. She exchanged a long-suffering look with Beth
Erskine who, at thirty-eight, was Heather's oldest and
most experienced serving maid.

Three months indeed, Heather thought. It wasn't
enough she must endure this time in a dreary if passably
comfortable dwelling in the isolation of the Highlands,
attempting to educate some possibly illiterate savage. But
now, in the bargain, to add Janet Mackenzie's generally
quite mindless company seemed almost past the point
of endurance.

For a moment, Heather seriously considered seeking
out her father and informing him he'd have to find some
other tutor for the Highlander. But only for a moment.
Heather knew Robert Gordon had neither the time nor
easy resources to procure an adequate substitute for her,
especially here. And the resultant look she knew she'd see
in her father's eyes, a look of hurt and disappointment,
would be more than she could bear.

So Heather bit her tongue, forced a pleasant smile on
her face, and nodded in agreement. "I, too, am pleased
finally to be able to spend an extended amount of time
with ye, Cousin. I've always wanted to discover the secret
of that special appeal of the Highlands and now, mayhap,
I'll finally have the opportunity."

"Well, ye'll soon discover one of our most dearly kept
secrets," Janet said with an impish grin. "Father tells me Duncan Mackenzie rides here even now, summoned for
a private talk with him and yer father. And that braw
lad," she added with a lusty sigh, "is the finest piece of
man flesh in these parts. I mean to wed him, but Father
says I must wait until I'm sixteen to take a husband. He's
worth the wait, though, and no mistake."

"Indeed?" Heather feigned a detached interest, guessing that this Duncan Mackenzie was the Stewart twin.
"Pray, what's special about this man to make him `the
finest piece of man flesh'?"

"Och, he's every woman's dream-tall, dark of hair,
with the finest pair of green eyes ye'll ever hope to see,
and so braw and big." Janet's mouth curved in dreamy
ecstasy. "He's most comely to look upon too. And his
voice ... well, it's so warm and mellow it would melt
the snow on the mountains."

"He sounds most pleasing." Heather shot Beth a covert
grin. "Mayhap he'll stay and visit a few days, and we'll
have the pleasure-"

"Look, look!" Suddenly oblivious to the pouring rain,
Janet ran from the shelter of the stairway and over to the
crenellated battlements that topped the tower. "Is it? Is
it him?" She squinted out over the countryside.

Politely, Heather leaned as far from the stairway as she
could and, for her efforts, was rewarded with a torrent
of cold raindrops in her face. With a sputter, she leaped
back within the relative shelter of the stairway.

"Who? Where?" she called out to her cousin.

"There." The girl pointed down the muddy road leading to the tower house. Just crossing the curving stone bridge that spanned a frozen stretch of bum were the
mist-shrouded forms of two men on horseback.

"I'd know those proud, broad shoulders anywhere
and the braw way he sits his horse," Janet cried. "It's
Duncan. Duncan's here!"

Still seemingly unaware of the water streaming from
the skies, Janet gathered her skirts, turned, and hurried
to Heather and Beth. Her unbound, curly red hair hung
in wet ringlets, clinging to her face and shoulders. Rain
coursed down her cheeks and dripped from her nose.

"Come, I must prepare myself to greet Duncan. It isn't
often he visits us. I want to impress him with how much
more a woman I am now than when he last saw me. He's
certain to need a hot bath, what with the discomforts
of the journey, and I must hurry if I'm to set all aright
before he arrives."

"Then I'll not disturb ye in yer preparations." Heather
stepped aside to let Janet pass. "There'll be plenty of time
to visit further, I'm sure, once ye've had yer fill of this
Duncan Mackenzie."

Aye, Heather added silently, let him bear the brunt of
Janet's attention. It was more than gladly relinquished.
Three months. Surely she could bear Janet, Duncan
Mackenzie, and the Highlands for three months.

The girl smiled, nodded, then brushed past them and
scurried down the stairs. Beth grinned at Heather.

"I'd say ye've yer hands full with that one."

"And which one are ye speaking of?" Heather asked
with a soft chuckle. "Janet or this Duncan Mackenzie?"

Beth cocked her head, her sparkling gray eyes gleaming with mischief. "I haven't decided. Mayhap one, mayhap
both. Either way, though, I'd wager ye're in for a rough
time of it."

Heather had no interest in awaiting the arrival of the
two Highlanders. She already knew, even without Janet's
added verification, that Duncan would be handsome.
She had spent enough time with Colin Stewart to have
briefly fallen under that special influence of piercing,
jade green eyes, chestnut brown hair, strong nose, and
stubborn jaw to know whereof Janet spoke.

But she was equally aware, for all his fine education
and airs, the most noble of the two brothers was selfcentered, arrogant, and lacked any depth of character.
How much less impressive could the Highland-raised
brother be, reared in nearly total isolation from everything that truly mattered? In the end, what counted
wasn't braw looks and trappings, but the heart and mind
of the man. And, odds were, not much good ever came
out of the Highlands.

Though her own mother had been of the Highlands,
Heather nonetheless considered herself a Gordon through
and through. And the Gordons, who had risen over the
centuries to become the predominant power in the northeast of Scotland, weren't natives to the Highlands or
indeed even to Scotland itself. Of Norman descent, they
were one of many families welcomed into his kingdom
by David I. Indeed, they chose to call themselves the
House of Gordon, rather than Clan Gordon, distancing themselves in every way they could from their more
Gaelic-and coarser-Highland neighbors.

Even before her father spurned Colin Stewart's suit for
her hand, Heather had found him lacking on so many
levels. But at least Charlie Seton, as plain as he was in
face and body, seemed a good, decent man. Her father
had chosen well in that, if nothing else.

"Ye should go down and be there to greet the Highlander," Beth said as she followed Heather along the corridor to her bedchamber. "Janet's love-struck aspirations
don't matter a whit in light of yer needs. And I'd wager,
once he has a chance to set eye upon ye, he'll not spare
that girl another look."

Heather glanced at her maid. She had brought two
lady's maids with her-Beth and Alison Gordon, a distant
cousin. Of the two, however, Heather far preferred the
plump, brown-haired Beth's solid common sense and
dependable ways to the flighty, vain little Alison. Her
advice was usually good, her opinions based on careful
observations. This latest statement, however, was most
unsettling.